Prevention Tips Survival Tips

Parents/adults….This section has fire prevention and survival tips to help keep your family safe, as well as links to other great sites. Your Family Escape Plan offers step-by-step instructions with neat photos that parents can teach to their children.

Most fires in Regina are not accidental.  They can be easily prevented. Most fires in Regina are caused by young children playing with matches or lighters, careless smoking and careless cooking.

How to Prevent Fires Started By Young Children:

• Teach children that matches and lighters are tools for adults, not children’s toys. 
• Teach young children to tell a grown-up if they find matches or lighters around the home. 
• Store all matches and lighters up high out of children’s reach, and preferably in a locked cabinet.
• Take any evidence of child-set fires seriously.

How to Prevent Fires Started By Smoking:

• Always use large, heavy, non-tip ashtrays.
• Don’t let ashtrays become so full that hot ashes might spill over the side.
• Douse or soak butts and ashes with water before dumping them into a wastebasket.
• Before going to sleep or leaving home, especially if people have been drinking alcohol and smoking, check your furniture for butts. A cigarette that falls into upholstery can smolder for hours before bursting into flames.
• Never smoke in bed or when drowsy, intoxicated, or medicated; Avoid falling asleep while smoking.  (Most fire fatalities in Regina are caused by careless smoking)
• Keep matches and lighters up high, locked away, out of the reach of small children, and buy only lighters that have a child-resistant safety feature.
• Consider stopping smoking.

How to Prevent Fires and Burns Caused By Cooking:

• Never leave cooking unattended, and keep potholders, towels, food packaging, and other clutter away from burners.
• If you are called away from the kitchen for just a moment, then remove the pot from the stove top and turn off the burner.
• Keep your stove top and oven clean. Grease and other food residues can catch fire. Wear short, close-fitting, or tightly rolled-up sleeves when cooking. Loose clothing can dangle onto stove burners and catch fire.
• Always use fire-resistant oven mitts or potholders. Caution: using a wet oven mitt can cause a steam burn.
• Turn pot handles inward so pots can’t be knocked off the stove or pulled down by small children.
• Keep a large lid close by so that you can smother a fire in a pot.
• Teach your children that hot liquids can cause painful burns.
• Remember that severe burns (from heat, flame, scalding liquids, and contact with hot surfaces) may be fatal or disfiguring and can result in pain and permanent injury.
• Keep toddlers in a playpen when older family members are cooking.  Older children should watch younger children.
• Don’t carry hot liquids if children are close by.
• Use caution when handling hot liquids heated in microwave ovens.
• Do not store things over the stove.  Overhead storage encourages "climbers and reachers" and can result in burns.
• Do no let appliance cords dangle – roll them up out of reach.  If an appliance smells funny or isn’t working correctly, have it replaced.

How to Prevent Burns Caused By Hot Liquids

Scalds are burns caused by hot liquids or steam such as hot liquids spilled in the kitchen or hot tap water.  To prevent burns caused by hot liquids:

• Supervise children at all times when they are in the kitchen or bathroom.
• When bathing children, fill the tub with cold water first then add hot water and do not let children turn on the hot water tap.
• Place hot liquids away from the edge of the table and avoid using tablecloths that hang over the edge.  A young child may pull on the tablecloth – pulling the hot liquid on him/herself.

First Aid for Scalds:

• First-Degree Burns: Redness of the skin; apply cool water.
• Second-Degree Burns: Red and blistered skin; apply cool water and get medical aid immediately.
• Third-Degree Burns: Charred or burned skin; apply cool water and get medical aid immediately.

Tips For Babysitters

For prevention activities to do with your children, visit Sparky The Fire Dog's Web site.